I bought a couple of cans of pumpkin puree the other day while grocery shopping, and spent a couple of days pondering what to make–I was leaning towards cookies until my mom reminded me about a delicious baked good that I had forgotten even existed: muffins! I haven’t made muffins for a while, but I do know that muffins in general pretend to be a healthy food while in actuality they are just a glorified cake that you are allowed to eat for breakfast. As I am trying to eat somewhat healthily, I searched for a recipe that had at least a few redeeming qualities. No point in making food that you feel guilty eating, right?
(Healthier) Pumpkin Spice Muffins (Adapted from CDKitchen’s Victoria Wesseler; original recipe here)
- 1 C all-purpose flour
- 3/4 C whole wheat flour
- 1/4 t baking powder
- 1 t baking soda
- 3/4 C sugar (the original recipe called for 1 1/4 C!! totally unnecessary)
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/4 t ground cloves
- 1/2 t freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 t cinnamon (sorry Fritz)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 C pumpkin puree
- 1/2 C plain no-fat greek yogurt
- 1/3 C water
- 1/2 C raisins
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. I used my mixer for this, and added first all of the dry ingredients (including spices), and started mixing at a low speed while adding all of the wet ingredients. Technically you should mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl first (beating the eggs for some extra air) but 1) I’m lazy and 2) I like dense muffins. So there ya go.
Pour the batter into greased muffin tins. I wanted to use cupcake liners to make the muffins more school-transportation friendly, which worked but the muffins do stick a little bit to the liner. I’m guessing that’s because there’s no oil in the batter. I also found a couple of mini-bundt cake pans that I bought at an 18-mile garage sale (yes, that’s right. 18-miles of garage sale-ing madness) for a dollar, and wanted to try them. They came out so cute–perfect for individual desserts if I were to ever throw a fancy little dinner party in the far-away future.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for five minutes before removing from the tin, then finish cooling on a wire rack. A lot of recipes I searched for recommended a tangy cream cheese icing to drizzle on top, but when I tried them they were honestly sweet enough to not need it–thank goodness I went from 1 1/4 C of sugar to 3/4 C! Though I’m sure the icing would be delicious, since I love cream cheese frosting.
I think Fritz is officially getting over his anti-cinnamon feelings, and might in fact be growing immune to it since at least half of the food I make has cinnamon in it (I just don’t always tell him). Next up on my list of foods to make Fritz love without his knowledge is mustard, then garlic.
Since I have two practicals coming up on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I’ll hopefully be doing tons of focused and effective studying so that I don’t have to get all panicky and nervous on Tuesday night. We just finished the 4th season of LOST and until we request the next season from the library I don’t even have that to distract me. More likely though, I’ll start cooking more elaborate foods then ever before and study much less than I should. But, to get off to a good start I’m going to study a little bit right now while Fritz is outside putting the cover on our pool. Wish me luck!
